Dirty Hole
by polydimensional
Summary: Everyone wants to be in Kenny's dirty hole, while Kenny just wants to stay dead in his own grave, his own dirty hole. But that would be too kind, and kindness wants nothing to do with him. Inspired by the song by VAST. Warning: disturbing and graphic content, including language, prostitution, abuse, rape, and character death. You have been warned.


**A/N: **If you have not listened to 'Dirty Hole' by VAST, then please, go listen to it now. I implore you. No song has ever struck me so deeply or evoked such powerful emotions in me; it may not do the same for you, but give it a listen anyways.

Side note - there are no pairings in this story. I intended for Kenny and Cartman's relationship to be strong friendship only, but feel free to view it as Keneric if you so desire; I won't be offended.

[Photo courtesy of **gokudera-kun **on deviantart - I do not own the picture!]

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I'm standing in a cemetery, surrounded by tombstones. There is nothing strange about this; I have been in cemeteries before. What horrifies me into a temporary state of catatonia, however, is not the cemetery itself but the tombstones. There are well over a hundred tombstones, each a respectable distance from each other, and although they each have a different date inscribed in their grey slates and granites and marbles, one thing remains unchanged. Every single tombstone has my name written on it.

Kenneth McCormick, March 22, 1997 - August 13, 1997. _A child of Heaven now._

Kenneth McCormick, March 22, 1997 - January 20, 2000. _Gone but not forgotten._

Kenneth McCormick, March 22, 1997 - October 18, 2004. _You bastards!_

Kenneth McCormick, March 22, 1997 - March 22, 2007. _Happy Birthday._

Kenneth McCormick, March 22, 1997 - March 11, 2009. _Syphilis is still a deadly disease._

Kenneth McCormick, March 22, 1997 - April 1, 2011. _April Fool's!_

Kenneth McCormick, March 22, 1997 - September 15, 2012. _He shall be missed._

The names, the dates, the engravings - they go on and on, unending, taking up the entire expanse of this unholy cemetery. Is there even room left for more bodies?

_Kenny..._

I snap out of my stupor and whirl around, eyes darting wildly from side to side. My imagination? Or something else...?

_Kenny!_

There it is again, more loudly this time. It is difficult to make out a tone from this phantom whisper, but I can detect no hint of friendliness. The damp earth beneath my sneakers suddenly shifts, and by the time I look down, my pale blue hand has reached out from its grave and wrapped around my ankle. My pinky and ring finger are missing, crudely cut off by some unknown sharp instrument, and a cylinder of skin has been peeled back like a tight dress being unzipped from a skeletal body, revealing the cracked bones of my finger underneath. I let out a startled yelp and jerk myself free, but another hand emerges from a grave, the _April Fool's!_ grave, and pulls me off my feet with a violent tug.

Dozens of hands now emerge from the soil and lift me up, working together to carry me off like a rockstar surfing a crowd of wild strangers who have sworn their undying love to him. I soon realize that they are taking me to the only blank tombstone in the entire cemetery. As we get nearer, however, words begin to etch themselves into the cold granite:

Kenneth McCormick, March 22, 1997 - March 31, 2013. _Have fun in Hell._

Beneath the tombstone, a grave quite literally digs itself open, soil flying out every which way, as if the hand of God himself has scooped out a hole in the earth to lay me to rest. I begin to struggle violently, clutching and clawing at the damp ground steadily passing me by, trying to grasp enough soil to grind this macabre ceremony to a halt, but to no avail. The hands carry me with no intention of letting go, except to toss me into the grave and bury me alive.

_No no no no no, _I want to say, but can only make one continuous moaning sound, feeling something cold and thick like a maggot sliding down the side of my mouth. I pat my hand around the horrified, broken O-shape of my mouth and wrap my fingers around the foreign object. When I look down at it, I realize that it is my bottom lip, laying dead and still in my open palm. Shocked and disgusted, I shake my hand rapidly and it flies off into the dark grass - along with my thumb, broken clean off from its joint, skin and all. I make a hasty grab at it, but it's too late.

My lip and thumb were simply a prelude to the horror show that was yet to come; as soon as my thumb lands in one of a hundred of my graves, the rest of my body begins to fall apart in premature decay. I try desperately to hold myself together but my fingers are breaking off one by one, followed closely by larger limbs and facial features. Both my lips are gone and my teeth are dropping like piano keys in a cadaver's sonata, leaving behind a gaping, empty darkness. The hands jostle me roughly and my tongue detaches; surprised, I swallow it down, an involuntary reflex. It goes down my throat like a thick lump of raw meat, nearly choking me. I want to grab at my aching throat, but my hands got left behind six graves away.

My nose separates from my face with a faint sound like ripping paper and bounces off my chest. Breathing becomes easier for a moment, but then my lungs slowly deflate as my internal organs begin to decay. As I gasp for air, my spine disconnects one vertebra at a time, almost musically, like a xylophone constructed from bones. My muscles peel away from each other like thin layers of roast beef, and my bones become more and more brittle until the slightest jolt from the hands beneath me causes them to shatter. I feel jagged fragments of bone embed themselves in my organs - stomach, liver, heart - and blood starts pooling inside of me. My ribs rip themselves free of my sternum like the white legs of an albino spider, revealing my heart in all its pulsing vulnerability. Overwhelmed, my heartbeat stutters, weakens, and then slows. Inside, my organs are being drowned in my own blood; outside, my skin is sliding off my body and trailing behind me like the train of an impure wedding dress, leaving bone, muscle, and nerves exposed.

At last we reach our final destination: my newest grave, open like the cavernous mouth of the Devil. The hands toss my inside and I seem to fall forever, skin flapping and flailing like a torn parachute. My limbs and a couple of teeth and an eyeball that some of the hands collected along the way are thrown in after me and we fall together, my body and I. The bottom of the grave is reaching out to catch me and drag me down to Hell, and I brace myself, eyelids shut tightly over empty sockets, limbless, larva-like body curled against impact, and just as I am about to hit the ground and finally, _finally _be dead -

I wake up.

I raise my hands to my eyes and count ten fingers, then sigh with relief and feel all over my face and body, making sure my limbs, spine, and skin are still intact. I run my tongue over my teeth as I yawn, feeling for every one. I am exhausted; I had a long shift last night, and a client who demanded I stay with him until he fell asleep. I would have left anyways, but he tucked another twenty dollar bill into the waistband of the jeans I had just pulled on, so I stayed. It didn't take long for him to fall asleep anyways; ten minutes after I settled under the questionably clean motel bed sheets with him, he was snoring loudly enough for me to slip out of the room unheard and head for 7 Eleven, where I used the extra money to buy a bag of powdered donuts - breakfast for me and Karen. Kevin didn't need anything; drugs and booze made a decent breakfast substitute in his book. He probably wouldn't be able to tell a donut from a stinking roach of dope anyways.

Tempting as it was, I chose not to follow my father and brother's glorious path and, aside from the occasional beer at a party or a puff from a cigarette being passed around behind the school during lunch, I've managed to stay clean. The D.A.R.E. lion would be proud. That shit isn't cheap anyways; nothing depletes your cash stash faster than an eight ball or a couple packs of smokes. If I have any hope of getting myself (and Karen) out of this hick town, I'm going to need every penny I can get.

As I head towards the only bathroom in this decrepit house, hoping fruitlessly that it's not already taken by one of the occupants crashing here (for free, I might add), the dream I just had resurfaces in my mind. Isn't it bad enough that I die all the time in real life - why do I have to dream about dying, too? I don't know what higher being decided to have a good laugh and play this little joke on me, but I'm pretty sick of it. I don't mind the dying part so much, even if sometimes it's very painful or inconvenient. No, what really gets me is that I never stay dead. I don't know how many graves are out there with my mutilated bodies inside and my cursed name on the tombstones, or even if these graves exist - maybe they disappear along with everyone's memories of my deaths. Either way, no matter how many times I have been buried, I always wake up in the same bed, body unscathed, as if nothing happened. Maybe I did die in my dream, and I just came back to life when I woke up this morning.

Is this what the rest of my life is going to be? Forecast says most likely, with a one percent chance of hope. Oh, wait, that's not hope - that's a massive storm cloud heading this way, ready to rain desolation and misery for the unforeseeable future. Back to you, Reality...

As I suspected, the bathroom is occupied. I go back to my room, figuring I can wash up in the bathroom at the gas station; if I wait around for this door to open, I'll be here all day. I can't miss work again; I've already accumulated about two months' worth of missed days over the past three years that I've been working at Uncle Jimbo's Gas N' Go, due to my many unexplainable deaths. Hey, I can't exactly walk up to Jimbo and say: "Sorry I couldn't make it to work yesterday; I got flattened by a hit-and-run driver and spent four miserable hours watching the blood drain out of my body before a horde of rats came and finished the job." Somehow, I don't think that would go over very well with him.

The fact that I've ended up working at a gas station came as no surprise to my family or teachers or even my friends, let alone to myself. The most positive encouragement any teacher ever had to offer me was: "I'm sure you'll do a very good job pumping gas in the future. Maybe you'll even clean windshields one day!" They were half-right, at least; I work at the cash register instead of at the pumps, but it's still at the gas station. One of my only accomplishments in life has been completing high school; I didn't actually get to go to the graduation ceremony because I couldn't afford the cap and gown, and my family would have been too drunk or high to go anyways, but I got my diploma mailed to me. I have it stashed in a shoe box under two floorboards I purposefully loosened up under my bed, along with my old Mysterion costume and all the cash I have saved up. I'm still not sure if this is the safest location for it, but it's not like I can go out and buy an expensive safe that my dad will see and demand to look inside. I don't know the first thing about opening a bank account either; I would ask Kyle or Stan or Cartman, but I grew apart from the two "superbest friends" after middle school, and Cartman moved away two years ago.

My half of the BFF necklace he gave me back in kindergarten jingles quietly on the chain around my neck as I lean down to grab my work shirt from under a pile of dirty laundry. It may not have been apparent from the way we fought and insulted each other on a daily basis, but Cartman truly was my best friend. Well, there wasn't anyone else to compare him to since Stan and Kyle were never really my friends, but he was my best friend nonetheless. He is the only person who remembers my deaths, even though he takes advantage of them sometimes. Still, at least someone knows what's going on; I'm not completely alone with this unbelievable secret. He's even covered for me at work a couple of times when I was otherwise incapacitated. All four of us used to work at Uncle Jimbo's Gas N' Go because he was Stan's uncle, and that gave us an advantage over everyone else. Stan quit after two months, football practice taking greater priority, and Kyle quit soon after to focus on his studies. Cartman and I, being two of the poorest kids in town, stayed behind. In a way, I'm glad the others quit because now Stan can go to college on a football scholarship, and Kyle was recently accepted to an elite Jewish university in Israel for his prize-winning research papers on psychology and theology (I think the paper that won first place was called 'God, the Mind, and the Physical World' or something along those lines...too advanced for me to bother reading, but I heard the amount of praise it got). Neither of them would have had such successes while they were spending valuable time at a low-class workplace, making money they already had plenty of, but it still would have been nice to have their company during the long, boring hours until closing time.

But I had Cartman with me, so it was okay.

We knew all of each other's secrets. I knew about his hidden insecurities over his weight and the pain that the absence of a father caused him, as well as his worry that Liane wouldn't come home one night, dead from an overdose or raped and left for dead by one of her many sexual partners. He knew about my abusive family, my worry over not being able to provide for Karen, and the fear that I will never be able to leave this town. He was also well aware of my _other _job, and ripped on me a little for it, but never seriously, the same way I joked around with him about his eating habits and hermaphroditic mother. There was a mutual understanding between us that wasn't present with Stan and Kyle, an understanding that beneath the layer of taunts was a sincere bond of friendship. We even had a light-hearted 'goodbye' catch-phrase - he would wave a dollar in my face and say: "Stay poor, whore," while I would poke him in the stomach and retort: "Stay chubby, tubby." This may sound rude and insulting to some, but we always said it with a teasing tone and a smile on our faces.

We went to school together, played together as kids, and continued to hang out together while everyone else grew apart. We've even slept together, and no, not like that. Minds out of the gutter, ladies and gentlemen. We just slept in the same bed; nothing more. On nights when my parents were particularly drunk and violent, their curses slurred but their aim steady as they threw empty beer bottles at each other and then at me, I would slip out the front door and run to Cartman's house (or hobble, if one of the beer bottles had struck me in the leg). Sometimes he would be asleep; other times, he would still be up watching Terrance and Phillip reruns or typing away at his laptop, pulling pranks in adult chatrooms. One of his favorite pastimes includes posing as a sex-starved teenage girl under the alias Patty_Cake and tricking perverts into sending naked pictures of themselves to Kyle's e-mail address. To this day, Kyle still doesn't know where all those horrifying pictures come from, although I'm sure he suspects Cartman has something to do with it.

No matter if he was awake or sleeping, if I tapped on his window long enough he would always get up and let me in. He would demand I sleep on the floor every time, claiming that he didn't want to catch any herpes from me, but at some point during the night, I would feel something soft and fuzzy land on my head: Clyde Frog, his most treasured possession. He would always pretend not to realize that the stuffed animal had fallen off his bed, but I was comforted by it nonetheless. It was soft enough not to hurt my bruises when I nuzzled my face into it, and was also a champion at absorbing tears. Eventually, though, the floor would get too cold and I would quietly crawl into Cartman's bed, taking care not to jostle him if he was asleep. Sometimes he would stay asleep, but even during the times when his breathing pattern changed enough to convince me that he had woken up, he never made me get off. He would just continue feigning sleep until real sleep came over him, not moving any closer to me but not pushing me away either. I would place Clyde Frog so that he was touching both of us, then pull the covers up to my nose and breathe in Cartman's familiar scent until I managed to fall asleep, all the fear and stress of home banished from my mind until morning.

I no longer have that comfort. When he moved, he took Clyde Frog with him, along with his comforting scent and the promise of a safe place to sleep when things get too ugly at home.

I finish dressing and grab my toothbrush from my nightstand (I don't keep it in the bathroom for obvious reasons) so I can brush my teeth at the kitchen sink. Mom's got waffles in the toaster already, which Kevin is staring at with barely contained anticipation, while Karen is munching on some dry corn flakes. It was Kevin's turn to buy milk yesterday; he must have passed out from his drinking binge with Dad before that could happen. Dad is slurping away at his second beer of the morning. His eyes are bleary and red-rimmed, but the glazed is being slowly replaced by irritation each time Mom snags the bottle out of his hand and steals a gulp. I quickly brush my teeth and fish a packet out of the Pop-Tart box, grabbing Karen's backpack and books and ushering her out before our parents start getting really pissed off. The school bus only takes five minutes to arrive, and once she's safely aboard, I make my way towards the gas station, jogging a little to warm up.

The day goes by relatively uneventful and ordinary...and then Randy shows up. Stan's dad often comes into the store after gassing up to chat with Jimbo or buy some beef jerky when the mood suits him, but he rarely acknowledges me besides a cursory 'hey' of greeting. Until today, that is.

I look up when the bell above the store door jingles and nod my head when I see who it is. I turn my attention back to the cash register, expecting him to walk to the back room to talk to Jimbo. Instead, a box of condoms slides onto the conveyor belt. I look up again to find Randy staring at me intensely but hopefully. I blink, a little thrown off.

"Um," he begins, clearing his throat. "I heard this isn't your only job. You wanna make some money tonight?"

I lean back. Well...I never expected this, but I suppose I've heard more surprising things. There was even a rumor circulating back when I was younger that he and Kyle's dad, Gerald, batted for the other team because they admitted to masturbating together. I heard that they even got a little touchy-feely in a hot tub during a meteor shower party, but since Butters was the one who relayed that information to me, I couldn't be sure if it was true. That could have been wishful thinking on his part. But from what I just heard Randy ask me, there might actually be some truth to it.

Once I manage to reign in my surprise and determine how I should react, I let my lips curl in a feline grin.

"I have to work tonight," I purr. "But how about you pick me up afterwards and we can go somewhere special?"

Randy grins back, relieved that I didn't reject his approach.

"You gonna be dancing again?"

Once again he catches me by surprise. I hadn't realized that anyone in South Park watched my performances. Our little hick town is notorious for its homophobic attitude (despite the fact that nearly everyone has at least experimented with the same sex, nevermind stayed on the other team - Mr, Garrison, anyone?) so _Fantasia_, the gay strip club where I work Friday and Saturday nights as a pole dancer, was built a few miles outside of town. I had always assumed that I was anonymous at the club since I wear a mask and go by the stage name 'Angel' (God's not the only one with a twisted sense of humor); guess I'm not as unrecognizable as I previously thought.

"Yeah," I confirm sultrily, "I'll be doing a few songs at around nine, if you want to watch."

He shrugs, trying to seem nonchalant as if he's doing me a favor by agreeing to come, but I catch the excited glint in his eyes.

"Sounds good. I'll be bringing a friend - Gerald Broflovski. You know him?"

I resist the urge to raise my eyebrows; this guy is just full of surprises today. Maybe he and Gerald really are into each other? And into other, younger boys, too, apparently.

"Kyle's dad," I affirm, nodding. "I know him."

He nods and then pauses, tapping his finger gently on the edge of the condom box as he ponders what to say next. Then, "How much do you charge for threesomes?"

He's blunt, which is a relief to me. There's nothing more irritating and awkward than a customer who constantly beats around the bush, knowing exactly what he wants from me but being too embarrassed to say it aloud. I relax a little; tonight should be easy.

"Depends on how far you wanna go." I refrain from adding 'baby' or some other forced term of endearment; some customers are turned on by it, while others will immediately become cold and standoffish, no doubt imagining their wives or mothers using the same nicknames. You can never be certain of what kind of customer you're dealing with right off the bat, so it's better not to use any names until they initiate it first.

Randy doesn't seem bothered; if anything, this vague statement seems to have an exciting effect on him. He pushes the condom box towards me and I scan it while he shifts and tugs at his pants a little.

"I start dancing at nine," I remind him, tucking the money he handed over to me into the cash register. "So you can meet me behind the building when I'm done. I charge $250 for each person, and if you want to use a hotel room, you'll have to pay for that, too."

I don't like to beat around the bush, either.

"Will the motel right outside town do? It's cheap, but..."

_But you're used to that, _his silence finishes for him. Can't say that I disagree.

"Whatever you want," I purr, causing him to shift again. I hand him a plastic bag with his condoms and receipt inside, and he makes sure to casually brush his fingers over mine when he accepts it.

"See you tonight then."

I throw him a flirtatious smile. "Bye," I sing-song.

As soon as the bell jingles above the store door and his car drives away, I let loose a deep breath of relief (seduction can get tiring when you have to do it all the time), only to suck it back in sharply when an arm lands heavily over my shoulders.

"I didn't know you danced," a nasal voice breathes into my ear. I shove his face away.

"Craig, you ass! You scared me to death." I know what you're thinking, but if anyone has the right to use the term 'death' lightly, it's me.

He just grunts (his only method of expressing amusement) and removes his arm when I start shrugging violently. If Cartman was only a step away from being as poor as me, then Craig Tucker isn't too far behind. He's moved up a little on the finance scale since he started working at the gas station eight months ago, but he's still pretty low. His family's main problem is laziness; they only work enough to pay the cable bill and buy enough TV dinners and Big Macs to last them each month, and that's it. In fact, the only reason Craig is working at all is because his parents refuse to buy him the Red Racer DVD sets from Wal-Mart, so he has to buy them himself. His family situation isn't like Tweek's, whose parents spend virtually their entire paychecks on coffee and anxiolytics, or Clyde's, whose father doled out thousands on therapy for both him and Clyde after his wife died in that freak toilet seat accident. His family isn't even like my mine, where all our money gets spent on drugs and alcohol and supporting over a dozen people in one tiny house. Sure, my dad can't hold a job, and both he and my mom are drunk or high practically every waking minute, but at least my mom and some of the other inhabitants in our house really do try, even though their addictions often get the better of them. No, the Tucker's excuse is just laziness.

And their lazy son is still standing next to me, staring. "I asked you a question, McCormick."

I gather my bearings and glare at him, heart still thudding from the recent fright. "You didn't ask me anything, Tucker; you simply made an observation."

If I thought being brusque with him would make him back off, I was dead wrong (yes, I use that morbid term _very _lightly). He just keeps staring at me with those grey, apathetic eyes.

"So it _is _you, then?" he murmurs to himself. I look at him quizzically. "I hang out at _Fantasia _on Saturdays with the boys - Clyde and Token. We can't bring Tweek because flashing lights spaz him out; whatever, he's a pussy anyways. We always stay to watch this dude dance; calls himself 'Angel.' I always thought it might be you, but I was never sure, and no one I asked knew your real name." Again, that stare. "Guess I was right."

I slowly digest this information, considering very carefully how I should react. I get very good tips on Saturday nights; I never thought about where they came from, but if what Craig just told me is any indication, then they're probably from him and his friends, which means I should play nice so those tips keep coming. On the other hand, the thought of Craig watching me dance is really fucking creepy. In the end, I choose to just shrug and make a show of reorganizing the candy bars and Slim Jims next to the cash register.

Craig continues, undeterred, "Token totally wants to do you. He said he'll buy you dinner and everything." I tuck this bit of information away for later; I could always use a free meal. "And Clyde wants you to do him; he's such a little bitch." His tone never changes; even when he jokes or insults people, his voice is completely devoid of emotion. I fight down the urge to shiver. It's not so much that he's a bad guy; until he started working at the gas station, he never bothered me before. He's just creepy as hell. He never shows emotion, ever. One time when we were younger, I was playing street hockey with him and Stan. Craig knocked the puck past the goal, and when I went after it, a car came veering towards me ten miles over the speed limit and ran me over. All Craig said was, 'Hey, look out' and turned his attention back to the game; he barely even raised his voice. I've known him my whole life and I still can't tell if he is physically incapable of expressing emotion or if he really feels nothing at all. It's like he's not even human.

He's still staring at me, but his gaze has become thoughtful, almost unsure.

I sigh, my attempts to appear preoccupied proving a failure. "What is it now, Tucker?"

"I like watching you dance," he blurts out suddenly. I am taken aback a little. O...kay? He continues, seemingly spurred on by his own outburst. "When you're walking around or helping some old lady pump her gas or just standing behind the cash register, it's almost like you're trying to hide or run away while you're standing in one place. But when you dance, you stop running. You let go of everything and step into your own body, like a bud that's finally figured out it's supposed to be a rose. Your dancing is hot, sure...but it's also beautiful."

Woah. This time, I can't refrain from raising my eyebrows. Who knew Craig was such a poet? I think this is the most I've ever heard him say, and certainly the deepest. I'm stunned, but I'm also a little touched. Was that a hint of emotion I detected in his speech?

I regard him a little more closely. What brought this on? His face and body posture reveal nothing, but he could be lonely. He has friends, but does he have a girlfriend or boyfriend? I'm pretty sure Clyde is single, but Token is dating Wendy (although he seems to have plenty of time to go to gay strip clubs with Craig). I never see Craig hang out with anyone else, so I doubt he has a significant other. When we were younger, everyone was sure that Craig and Tweek would end up together - they were very close friends back then. 'Attached at the anus,' as Cartman so eloquently used to say. But they never went any further than friends; not as far as I know, at least. Butters and Bebe usually keep up with that kind of gossip; I mostly just mind my own business. Got enough of my own problems to worry about. To be honest, I don't think Tweek would be able to handle a relationship. His medication probably kills his sex drive anyways. His parents hoped that he would grow out of his paranoid tendencies and nervous tics, but they only got worse. A kindergartener once tried to hold his hand, and Tweek nearly landed himself in a straitjacket - he flipped out so badly, screaming about DNA theft and 'too much pressure.' Poor kindergartener nearly pissed himself. Most of the time, though, he's too doped up on his medication to really do anything. He still hangs out with Craig and his gang, but not as often since the doctors upped his dosage. The only other person I can imagine that Craig would be interested in is that Tourette's kid, Thomas, but he moved away back in ninth grade. So I guess Craig is alone.

"Hey, boys!" Jimbo's voice suddenly rings out. "We got an old geezer over here having some trouble with the pump. Think one of you can help out?"

Craig moves around the counter before I can, but not before slipping a scrap of notebook paper into my palm. I unfold it curiously and am met with ten hastily scribbled digits. His phone number.

Craig looks at me over his shoulder, expressionless. "I know that dancing's not your only job, either."

I watch him leave, the paper still in my hand. I look at it again and almost chuck it into the wastebasket, then retract my hand on second thought. As unnerving as Craig may be, he might prove useful one day. I don't have regular customers lining up for me, so I usually just accept whatever offer gets tossed my way, not caring who gives it. Could this be the offer I'm actually hoping for?

I tuck the paper into the pocket of my jeans, wondering if Craig is more human than he lets on.

* * *

**A/N: **I'll try to have the next chapter up as soon as possible. :)


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